Hi Don,

About four or so years ago, an evangelical wrote a blogpost about me, and there and in the comment section, some things untrue were written, so I commented, and somehow Daniel Wallace came up, and I mentioned he denied inerrancy, knowing his view. And I wrote that with the knowledge of the most common conservative position. The guy kicked me off his blog for saying that, even with that explanation up front. Dan Wallace is kind of an untouchable, it seems, because he is so important to eclectic text guys, and his grammar is commonly used in most fundamentalist seminaries. I was separating my like for some of his work from the errors, because I use his grammar and find it helpful. Anyway, I thought I could actually get an honest take from you. Thanks.

Hi Kent, got through the whole thing.

I would say that Wallace would be an example of what I am talking about. The academic largesse, the willingness to concede ground for the sake of dialog. It’s really the new evangelicalism all over again.

On his specific points, I would like to be able to write a blog about it, but I am afraid I won’t have time, so I’ll make a few comments here.

First, I have often said you don’t need to know everything about orthodox theology in order to be saved. The bare minimum, it seems to me, is knowledge of and personal conviction of sin and hell, an understanding that Jesus is able to save from our sins because he is our perfect substitute on the cross, and that we call out to him for salvation. How much of his deity, the hypostatic union, the virgin birth, etc, do we need to know/understand? Not a lot, according to Romans 10 and other passages. But!!! But a new believer will not deny orthodox doctrine if he is truly a believer. By deny, I don’t mean misunderstand or poorly state. I mean outright denial after having been clearly taught. So you couldn’t have faith in Christ if you out and out denied his deity, saying he is just a man.

And I believe that some doctrines, like inerrancy, would not be required for saving faith to exist. However, the person who denies inerrancy has a deficient statement of faith, at least, and is leaving the door open to lots of problems down the road.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

He really gets into his view with the Christological Grounds section, after where you’re at right now.

Interesting… I’ve gotten about half-way through the article, at the point where he lists his 4-point taxonomy of doctrine. I’ll try to finish it off and maybe do a follow-up post at some point. I take issue with his description of fundamentalists, however.

I know this could take a little while, so it’s up to you, but what do you think of Daniel Wallace’s take on inerrancy? http://bible.org/article/my-take-inerrancy At some point is “inerrancy” not inerrancy?

Thanks Andy,

I am embarrassed that I misremembered the footnote. I went looking for my copy of his commentary a few minutes ago, but it is hopeless. I need to get an office built in our new house so I can unpack my library.

You are right that the statement is completely unnecessary. It made me so disgusted that I quit using Shreiner at all for my Romans series. Why he would make the comment is beyond me.

It is amazing how often evangelicals do things like this – little concessions to unbelief. The sop they have to pay for recognition as “scholars”, maybe? I don’t know. The consistent occurrence of this kind of willingness to give over the doctrine of inspiration is astonishing.

As for Ps 51 itself, I am not aware of authorship disputes in particular, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I was surprised when teaching Proverbs recently that many evangelicals deny in part or in the main Solomonic authorship for Proverbs. This in spite of three specific references in the book that Solomon is responsible for the contents. I suppose inerrancy doesn’t cover those verses.

Anyway, thanks for looking it up and recovering some of my credibility. I still am embarassed to have associated the footnote with chapter 4 instead of chapter 3.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3